


It Was A Dark & Stormy Night

by Gildedmuse



Series: It Was A Dark & Stormy Night [4]
Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: Canon Era, Challenge Response, First Lines Challenge, Gen, Lemony Narrator, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Short One Shot, mood piece, vaticinal familial discourse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-27 00:13:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18727726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gildedmuse/pseuds/Gildedmuse
Summary: Or at least it should have been.





	It Was A Dark & Stormy Night

**Author's Note:**

> [Posted to Tumblr around 2013 as part of a series of fics all beginning with the same line.]

**It Was A Dark & Stormy Night**

Now would usually be a good time for one to properly set the tone. Setting the tone, as you are likely aware my dear reader, is when an author gets bored of narrating what their characters are actually doing - such as cases where everyone is stuck in the back of a small, cramped taxi in which there was nothing one could do other than hunch up your shoulders and sit as still as possible - and instead decides they would much rather use paragraph or two (or even three if they are working under a particularly strict word count policy and have otherwise run through every possible story lengthening technique they know and whose editors are too busy to overlook orangutang soliloquy vertigo adpositions) to devotee towards detailing a single item or place or particularly expressive plant that in some way parallels the emotions of the characters but in a way that doesn’t require explaining the actual emotions themselves which can be quite complex and messy things and are often difficult to express with mere words even for those who make a living doing nothing but writing down words in order to describe complex and messy things.

For example: on the subject of the Baudelaire orphans and their newest abode - a word here meaning a building in which one lived but which is pointedly in no way the familiar, warm sort of home which the three children so desperately long for - the tone would best be served if I could write to you of how that particular day was actually a dark, stormy night with rain pouring down over the taxi’s windows utterly obscuring the view save the occasional intervals when violent gusts of wind swept past, lifting the torrent only so long as to allow the most fleeting glances of a grotesque twisting towers and oppressive black walls (for it is in a rather ugly and poorly done imitation gothic mansion that our scene lies) and rattling the taxi as it rumbled down the stone path, it’s headlights struggling against the darkness.

Perhaps you have been in such a storm, or could at least imagine how terrifying such an experience must be, especially for three young children approaching a building the original architect had meant to appear frighteningly beautiful but had turned out only frightening. Perhaps you could imagine how scary it would be to remain out in the storm and how equally scary it would be to go inside. Perhaps all of that would allow you to feel even a small sliver of one of the many, many things felt by each one of the children in that moment. Which is precisely why it would be such a good way to set the tone.

Unfortunately, I can write no such thing, for though the building was quite frightening and the ride quite uncomfortable, the taxi driver had actually made fine time and it was still quite light out as the Baudelaire orphans found themselves staring out at the mansion. As they took cautious, anxious steps out onto the stone driveway they were greeted by a pleasant breeze and a warm afternoon, precisely the sort of weather one would want if you were to have a picnic or play hide and seek outside with friends but exactly the wrong sort of weather for the emotions going through Violet, Klaus, and Sonny’s heads. Emotions I wish I could properly describe so that you might have a full picture of what it was like to stand there feeling small and alone and hopeful and needy and scared and cautious and wishful and together.

But the day refused to be anything but mildly pleasant and, besides, emotions are messy things and sometimes they are impossible to describe even if the weather were to be dark and stormy.

  
  
  



End file.
